IBPS RRB Officers Selection Exam: Word List: Vocabulary P

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Word List: P

  • paean: Song of praise or triumph
  • palate: Roof of the mouth; sense of taste
  • palatial: Magnificent
  • palliate: Lessen the severity of
  • palliate: To make something appear less serious, to alleviate, to gloss over
  • palpability: Can be felt, touched, understood
  • palpitate: Tremble, beat rapidly and irregularly
  • panegyric: Formal praise, eulogy
  • paradigm: a model, example, or pattern
  • parenthesis: Sentence within another one, smth separated
  • pariah: An outcast, a rejected and despised person
  • parsimonious: Too economical, miserly
  • partisan: One-sided, committed to a party, biased or prejudiced
  • patron: Regular customer; person who gives support
  • paucity: Scarcity, a lacking of
  • peccadillo-small sin; small weakness in oneีšs character
  • pedantic-bookish, showing off learning
  • pedestrian: Commonplace, trite, unremarkable
  • pellucid: Transparent, easy to understand
  • penchant: Strong inclination, a liking
  • penitent: Feeling or showing regret
  • penury: Extreme poverty
  • peregrination: Traveling about, wandering
  • peremptory-urgent, imperative, unchallengeable, ending debate
  • perennial: Lasting for a long time (e. g. a year)
  • perfidious: Treacherous, faithless
  • perfidy: Treachery; breaking of faith
  • perfunctory-done as a duty without care
  • perilous: Dangerous
  • peripatetic: Wandering
  • perish: Be destroyed; decay
  • perjury: Willful false statement, unlawful act
  • permeate: Spread into every part of
  • pernicious: Harmful, injurious
  • perpetrate: Be guilty; commit (a crime)
  • persevere: Keep on steadily, continue
  • personable: Pleasing in appearance, attractive
  • perspicacity: Quick judging and understanding
  • pertain: Belong as a part, have reference
  • pest: Destructive thing or a person who is nuisance
  • petrified: Taken away power (to think, feel, act)
  • petrify: To make hard, rocklike
  • petrous: Like a rock, hard, stony
  • petulant: Unreasonably impatient
  • philistine: a smug ignorant person; one who lacks knowledge
  • phlegmatic: Calm, sluggish temperament; unemotional
  • picaresque: Involving clever rogues or adventurers
  • pied: Of mixed colors
  • pinch: Be too tight, take between the thumb and finger
  • pious: Dutiful to parents; devoted to religion
  • piquant: Agreeably pungent, stimulating
  • pique: Hurt the pride or self-respect, stir (curiosity)
  • pitfall: Covered hole as a trap, unsuspected danger
  • pith: Essential part, force, soft liquid substance
  • pivotal: Of great importance (others depend on it)
  • placate: Soothe, pacify, calm
  • plaintive: Mournful, melancholy, sorrowful
  • plaque: Flat metal on a wall as a memorial
  • platitude: a trite or banal statement; unoriginality
  • plea: Request
  • plead: Address a court of law as an advocate
  • plethora: Glut
  • pliant: Pliable, easily bent, shaped or twisted
  • plod: Continue doing smth without resting
  • pluck: Pull the feathers off, pick (e. g. Flowers)
  • plumb: Get to the root of
  • plummet: Fall, plunge, steeply
  • plunge: Move quickly, suddenly and with force
  • poignant: Deeply moving; keen
  • poise: Be ready, be balanced, self-possession
  • polemical: Controversial, argued
  • ponderous: Heavy, bulky, dull
  • portent: Omen; marvelous; threatening
  • poseur: Someone taking on airs to impress others; a phony
  • posture: State, attitude; adopt a vain
  • poverty: State of being poor
  • pragmatic: Practical, favoring utility
  • precarious: Uncertain, risky, dangerous
  • precept: Moral instruction
  • precepts-rules establishing standards of conduct
  • precipitate: Throw smth violently down from a height
  • preclude: Prevent, make impossible
  • precursory: Preliminary, anticipating
  • predilection-special liking, mental preference
  • predominate: Have more power than others
  • preempt: Obtain by preemption or in advance
  • premature: Doing or happening smth before the right time
  • preponderance: Greatness in number, strength, weight
  • presage: Warning sign
  • preternatural: Not normal or usual
  • prevalent: Common
  • prevaricate: To equivocate, to stray from the truth
  • prim: Neat; formal
  • pristine: Primitive, unspoiled, pure, as in earlier times, unadulterated
  • probity: Uprightness, incorruptibility, principle
  • proclivity-inclination
  • procrastination-keeping on putting off
  • prodigal: Wasteful, reckless with money
  • prodigious: Enormous, wonderful
  • profane: Worldly, having contempt for God
  • profligate: Wasteful, prodigal, licentious, extravagant
  • profundity: Depth
  • proliferate: Grow, reproduce by rapid multification
  • prolix: Tiring because too long
  • prone: Prostrate; inclined to (undesirable things)
  • propagation: Increasing the number, spreading, extending
  • propinquity: Nearness in time or place, affinity of nature
  • propitiate: Do smth to take away the anger of
  • propitiatory: Conciliatory, appeasing, mitigating
  • propitious: Auspicious, presenting favorable circumstances
  • prosaic: Everyday, mundane, commonplace, trite, pedestrian
  • proscribe: Denounce as dangerous
  • protracted: Prolonged
  • provident: Frugal; looking to the future
  • provisional: Of the present time only
  • provoke: Make angry; vax
  • prudence: Careful forethought
  • prudish: Easily shocked, excessively modest
  • prune: Dried plum, silly person
  • pry: Get smth; inquire too curiously
  • pugnacious: Fond of, in the habit of fighting
  • punch: Strike with the fist; tool for cutting holes; alc. Drink
  • punctilious: Precise, paying attention to trivialities
  • pundit: Pedant, authority on a subject
  • pungency: Sharpness; stinging quality
  • purvey: Provide, supply
  • pusillanimous: Cowardly, craven
  • pyre: Large pile of wood for burning
  • palate: The roof of the mouth. Palatial: Magnificent.
  • palliate: To cause to appear less guilty. Palpable: Perceptible by feeling or touch.
  • panacea: A remedy or medicine proposed for or professing to cure all diseases. Panegyric: A formal and elaborate eulogy, written or spoken, of a person or of an act. Panoply: A full set of armor. Paragon: A model of excellence.
  • Pariah: A member of a degraded class; a social outcast.
  • paroxysm: A sudden outburst of any kind of activity.
  • parsimonious: Unduly sparing in the use or expenditure of money.
  • partisan: Characterized by or exhibiting undue or unreasoning devotion to a party.
  • pathos: The quality in any form of representation that rouses emotion or sympathy.
  • paucity: Fewness.
  • peccadillo: A small breach of propriety or principle.
  • pedestrian: One who journeys on foot.
  • pellucid: Translucent.
  • penchant: A bias in favor of something.
  • peremptory: Precluding question or appeal.
  • perfidy: Treachery.
  • perfunctory: Half-hearted.
  • peripatetic: Walking about:
  • perjury: A solemn assertion of a falsity.
  • permeate: To pervade.
  • pernicious: Tending to kill or hurt.
  • persiflage: Banter.
  • perspicacity: Acuteness or discernment. Perturbation: Mental excitement or confusion.
  • petrify: To convert into a substance of stony hardness and character.
  • petulant: Displaying impatience.
  • phlegmatic: Not easily roused to feeling or action.
  • physiognomy: The external appearance merely.
  • pious: Religious.
  • pique: To excite a slight degree of anger in:
  • placate: To bring from a state of angry or hostile feeling to one of patience or friendliness.
  • platitude: A written or spoken statement that is flat, dull, or commonplace. Plea: An argument to obtain some desired action. Plenary: Entire.
  • portent: Anything that indicates what is to happen. Precarious: Perilous. Preclude: To prevent.
  • precocious: Having the mental faculties prematurely developed. Predominate: To be chief in importance, quantity, or degree. Premature: Coming too soon. Presage: To foretell.
  • prescience: Knowledge of events before they take place.
  • presumption: That which may be logically assumed to be true until disproved.
  • preternatural: Extraordinary.
  • prevalent: Of wide extent or frequent occurrence.
  • prevaricate: To use ambiguous or evasive language for the purpose of deceiving or diverting attention. Prim: Stiffly proper. Pristine: Primitive.
  • probity: Virtue or integrity tested and confirmed. Proclivity: A natural inclination. Procrastination: Delay.
  • prodigal: One wasteful or extravagant, especially in the use of money or property.
  • prodigious: Immense.
  • profligacy: Shameless viciousness.
  • profligate: Recklessly wasteful
  • profuse: Produced or displayed in overabundance.
  • prolix: Verbose.
  • propinquity: Nearness.
  • propitious: Kindly disposed.
  • prosaic: Unimaginative.
  • proscribe: To reject, as a teaching or a practice, with condemnation or denunciation. Protuberant: Bulging.
  • provident: Anticipating and making ready for future wants or emergencies. Prudence: Caution.
  • puerile: Childish. Pugnacious: Quarrelsome.
  • punctilious: Strictly observant of the rules or forms prescribed by law or custom. Pungency: The quality of affecting the sense of smell. Pusillanimous: Without spirit or bravery.
  • pyre: A heap of combustibles arranged for burning a dead body.